The "spirit helper" does not do that, nor am I aware, on the other hand, that the hereditary totem of an exogamous kin is ever, or anywhere, regarded as a "tutelary spirit." No such idea has ever been found in Australia. Again, if I understand Dr. Boas, among his north-western tribes, such as the Thlinket, who have female descent and hereditary exogamous totems, the totem is no more regarded as a tutelary spirit than it is among the Australians. Of the Kwakiutl he says, "The manitu" (that is, the individual's tutelary spirit) "was acquired by a mythical ancestor, and the connection has become so slight, in many cases, that the tutelary genius of the clan has degenerated into a crest."
That the "crest" or totem mark was originally a "tutelary genius" among the Thlinket, seems to be merely the hypothesis of Dr. Boas. Even among the Kwakiutl, in their transitional state, the totem mark now is "in many cases a crest." "This degeneration" (from spirit to crest), our author writes, "I take to be due to the influence of the northern totemism," such as that of the Thlinket.[7] Thus the Thlinket, totemic on Australian primitive lines, do not regard their hereditary exogamous totems as "tutelary spirits."[8] No more do the Australians, nor the many American totemists who claim descent from the animal which is their totem.[9]
The tutelary spirit and the true totem, in my opinion, are utterly different things. The American theory that all things (their name is legion) called "totems" by the American School are, in origin and essence, tutelary spirits, is thus countered by the fact that the Australian tribes do not regard their hereditary totems as such; nor do many American tribes, even when they are familiar with the idea of the tutelary spirits of individuals. The Euahlayi, in Australia for instance, call tutelary spirits yunbeai; hereditary totems they call by a separate name, Dhe.[10]
The theory that the hereditary totem of the exogamous kin is the "spirit helper" or "tutelary genius," acquired by and transmitted by an actual ancestor, cannot be proved, for many reasons. We know plenty of tribes in which the individual has a "spirit helper," we know none in which he bequeaths it as the totem of an exogamous kin.
Again we find, (1) in Australia, tribes with hereditary totems, but with no "personal totems," as far as our knowledge goes. Whence, then, came Australian hereditary totems? Next, (2) we find tribes with both hereditary and "personal totems," but the "personal totems" are never hereditable. The "spirit helpers," where they do occur in Australia, are either the familiars of wizards (like the witch's cat or hare), or are given by wizards to others.[11] Next, (3) we find, in Africa and elsewhere, tribes with "personal totems," but with no hereditary totems. Why not? For these reasons, the theory that hereditary kin-totems are personal tutelary spirits become hereditary, seems a highly improbable conjecture. If it were right, genuine totemism, with exogamy, might arise in any savage society where "personal totems" flourish. But we never find totemism, with exogamy, just coming into existence.
To sum up the discussion as far as it has gone, Mr. Hill-Tout had maintained (1) that the concept of a ghostly helper is the basis of all his varieties of so-called "totems." I have replied that the idea of a tutelary spirit makes no part of the Australian, or usually of the American "concepts" about the hereditary totems. This is matter of certainty.
Mr. Hill-Tout next argues that hereditary totems are only "personal totems" become hereditary, which may happen, he says, in almost any stage of savage society. I have replied, "not plus the totemic law of exogamy," and he has answered (3) that the law is casual, and may or may not accompany a system of totemic kindred, instancing the Arunta, as a negative example. In answer, I have shown that the Arunta case is not to the point, that it is an isolated "sport."
I have also remarked frequently, in previous works, that under the primitive method of reckoning descent in the female line, an individual male cannot bequeath his personal protective animal as a kin-name to his descendants, so that the hereditary totem of the kin cannot have originated in that way. Mr. Hill-Tout answers that it can, and does, originate in that way—a male founder of a family can, and does, found it by bequeathing his personal protective animal to the descendants of his sisters, so that it henceforth passes in the female line. I quote his reply to my contention that this is not found to occur.[12]
"The main objection brought against this view of the matter by Mr. Andrew Lang and others is that the personal totem is not transmissible or hereditable. But is not this objection contrary to the facts of the case? We have abundant evidence to show that the personal totem is transmissible and hereditable. Even among tribes like the Thompson, where it was the custom for every one of both sexes to acquire a guardian spirit at the period of puberty, we find the totem is in some instances hereditable. Teit says, in his detailed account of the guardian spirits of the Thompson Indians, that 'the totems of the shamans[13] are sometimes inherited directly from the parents'; and among those tribes where individual totemism is not so prevalent, as, for instance, among the coast tribes of British Columbia, the personal totem of a chief or other prominent individual, more particularly if that totem has been acquired by means other than the usual dream or vision, such as a personal encounter with the object in the forest or in the mountains, is commonly inherited and owned by his or her posterity. It is but a few weeks ago that I made a special inquiry into this subject among some of the Halkomelem tribes of the Lower Fraser. 'Dr. George,' a noted shaman[14] of the Tcil'Qe'Ek, related to me the manner in which his grandfather had acquired their family totem,[15] the Bear; and made it perfectly clear that the Bear had been ever since the totem of all his grandfather's descendants. The important totem of the Sqoiàqî[16] which has members in a dozen different tribes of the coast and Lower Fraser Salish, is another case in point. It matters little to us how the first possessor of the totem acquired it. We may utterly disregard the account of its origin as given by the Indians themselves, the main fact for us is, that between a certain object or being and a body of people, certain mysterious relations have been established, identical with those existing between the individual and his personal totem; and that these people trace their descent from and are the lineal descendants of the man or woman who first acquired the totem. Here is evidence direct and ample of the hereditability of the individual totem, and American data abound in it."
All these things occur under the system of male kinship. Even if the "personal totem" of a chief or shaman is adopted by his offspring, it does not affect my argument, nor are the bearers of the badge thus inherited said to constitute an exogamous kin.[17] If they do not, the affair is not, in my sense, "totemic" at all. We should be dealing not with totemism but with heraldry, as when a man of the name of Lion obtains a lion as his crest, and transmits it to his family. Meanwhile I do not see "evidence direct and ample," or a shred of evidence, that a man's familiar animal is borrowed by his sisters, and handed on to their children.